1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet post-processing apparatus, and more particularly to a sheet post-processing apparatus equipped with a function of cutting a sheet material by irradiation with a laser beam.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in the case of forming images on a label sheet, it has been required to lay out the images to fit into label positions in respective divisions defined on the label sheet. In this case, label parts on which respective images are arranged are cut off afterward.
A technique of cutting a sheet material has been proposed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. H08-245049.
However, in the conventional case where images are formed on a label sheet, the laying out of each image to fit into a label position in a corresponding division defined on the label sheet suffers from the following inconveniences:
Firstly, a lot of trials for aligning image positions with the respective associated label positions are required. For example, in an A4 size label sheet (297 mm×210 mm) commercially available, a label size for each division is generally set to 74.25 mm×42 mm (labels in 4 rows×5 columns). In this case, the position of each image to be printed has to be set in alignment with the label position in the associated division defined at a specific location on the A4 size label sheet.
Secondly, when an image with a desired number of characters or character size cannot be fitted into such a label, it is also required to carry out various trials for correcting imbalance between the size of the label and the character size. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for suppressing increases in user office expenses, job time, and environmental load.